I am very proud of my final project. I worked super hard on it, and I think that is apparent in the game itself. I think hand-drawing the board and characters and sculpting the little guys/tokens gives everything a really charming feel, and everything about this game screams "Katy Field". I also like that the game is (in my and my partner's Alex's opinion) really fun, and the type of board game I like to play.
The only things that I wish had worked better was the loss of print quality from Canva and several typos on the cards. I was really excited about the QR codes on the "Love it or List it" cards linking players to various articles & resources, and was super dissapointed when they didn't scan. It would also have been cute to make a little box, but I ran out of both time and energy.
I believe I experienced a lot of "Hard fun" when constructing the game, as I got way too into it and decided to make everything from essentially scratch. I've found that as my life has been busy with school and work, I've had less time to focus on creative endeavors than I would like. Conversely, when I'm not busy with those things, it's hard to find the motivation to be creative. I liked that when making this board game, I gave myself a reason to draw, sculpt, write, design, and hang out with friends.
I also think the players experience a decent amount of hard fun, especially with the writing challenges. While it seems insane to write poems and tell jokes on the fly, I think it really causes people to put themselves into the game and think like an urban ecologist/city animal.
While this game is loosely intended to teach students general concepts of urban ecology, environmental advocacy, and animal behavior, I mostly intended this game as a way for players to think about the city around them. I wanted this game to have a large variety of ways for people of all strengths to show off their interpretation of the city and animals around them.
While I did the project myself, I couldn't have done it without a large amount of support - whether encouragement, someone to bounce ideas off of, technical support, play-testing, and positive peer pressure. I'd like to thank:
Alex Hocking - For play testing, listening to me whine, saying "that's great!" a bunch, and being the love of my life
Tracy Hogan - For convincing me to do the project and scheduling work sessions. An always fabulous source of feedback, encouragement, accommodations, and posca pens .
Mario & Jacob in the lab - Game would absolutely not be finished if not for Mario helping me out with the vinyl printer.
Saul - For starting the project and convincing me I should probably also do the project.
Milo & Gillian - For being study buddies and working on the project together.